Her expression was quickly changing from shocked to excited.
Len Akers tossed her a conspiratorial smile. “We wanted to surprise you.”
He’d joined them again for “dinner” in the staff childcare. This time, a bigger blanket spread, with Jesse and Ollie crawling all over it. Len’s wife Jane had been there briefly but had been called back to her hospital.
“Actually I thought you’d notice in the delivery room.” David was sprawled next to her.
“I didn’t, I was semi-out of it anyway.” Again Jill gaped back to his running shoes. Stretched out like that, you could clearly see his new Glock 26, strapped to his ankle under his scrub pants.
“Wow,” she said lamely. The thing she’d been clamoring for had finally happened. Unbelievable. She kept blinking at the gun.
Len told her, “We ran out for it while you were in the clinic”; and David said, “Gotta admit, it’s a relief to finally have it.”
“Great.” Now Jill was scowling. “So where’s mine?”
David took the baby spoon from her and started to feed Jesse his chicken and vegetables. “First things first. You gotta learn.”
“You aim and pull the trigger.”
“There’s more to it. Like training, not plugging the first thing that scares you.”
Len was struggling with Ollie who’d just spilled her cup of orange juice. She started howling. “Boun-ty please,” he said loudly, stretching out the words in exasperation. David passed him the big roll they kept for feeding time. Jesse pointed and chortled, “Owwie mesh!” Then he started trying to imitate Len’s wiping motions with the Bounty.
Other parents and childcare people glanced their way, briefly. Len ignored them. The room was full of noisy little ones.
“Rationally,” he said, showing Jesse how to wipe and blot, “I’ve always agreed with David, that having a you-know-what doesn’t help because a doctor’s back is always turned. I just don’t…feel right without it. I feel naked, too damn vulnerable.”
“Because of the Houston doctor who got shot,” Jill said.
“Yeah.” Len exhaled. “It happens. You hear about that Pennsylvania doctor who had to shoot in self defense yesterday? Some psych patient went after him, grazed his head. One inch made the difference, he could have been killed.”
David’s phone beeped. He looked. It was Alex Brand.
“Jill was right,” Alex said as David rose and took the phone to a somewhat quieter part of the room. “Mitch Haven was at Beth’s place but we missed him, I’ll spare you the obscenities.” Alex sounded spent and disgusted. This part of the room was still noisy so David covered his other ear. “Now we’re at a restaurant called Chez Antoine,” Brand said. There was clamor at his end too.
“A restaurant?” Someone else’s child started squalling. It was harder to hear.
“Yeah. Listen, our pal sent waiter resumes from Beth’s computer. Contacted six restaurants and an events planner. Restaurants mean couples. He’s evolving fast, maybe planning something in plain sight. We’re giving them flyers and BOLOs.”
More parents were arriving and the room got still noisier. David wished he’d gone out to the hall. “Haven using a new fake name?”
“Yeah, surprise. Brad Fuller, his name du jour. Gotta go, oh wait. The manager just came with a stack of resumes.” Indistinct chatter at the other end, then Alex was back. “Two hundred resumes for one job, can you beat it? Four more restaurants to go and probably no sleep again tonight. Well, thank Jill, okay? We didn’t get him at Beth’s but this restaurant thing is a new lead. Jeez, you two have given us our only leads.”
David went back, told Jill the conversation with Alex including Mitch Haven’s new fake name. “Brad Fuller, gunning next for restaurants, it sounds like. He sent six or seven places waiter resumes.”
“Restaurants?” Jill frowned, wiping Jesse’s face. “Public places? I thought he crept up behind people in the dark.”
“Alex said he’s evolving. The smart ones change their pattern.”
Jill looked uncertain. “Restaurants, people eating…” Something connected in her mind. “I was just telling Len how nervous I feel about tomorrow.”
Len patted her arm: there, there. David looked at her.
“The symposium.” Jill met his eyes.
He raised an eyebrow. “Researchers and scientists? A nine o’clock breakfast?”
She pressed her lips together. “I still worry,” she said. “That symposium’s going to be all strangers. We don’t know them, no one in hospital security knows them.”
“Jill,” Len said. Ollie had quieted and Jesse was playing happily with the contents of open sugar packets. “They’re pediatric neurologists, neonatologists-”
“The hospital’s going to let reporters in.”
“Four who’ve been checked and will be again before entering,” David said seriously, touching her hand. “I started to tell you in the scrub room that Simpson says everything is fine, not to worry. Everyone’s checked and double-checked and the caterer they’re using is the hospital’s usual caterer. Good people with resumes checked like Brink’s. That’s what he said.”
Jill exhaled, fretting for a moment about how neurotic she sounded.
Screw that.
“I’ve just got this bad feeling,” she said slowly. “This symposium started smaller. Six weeks ago it was just going to be an afternoon thing in the smaller auditorium, and I was semi-okay with that. But now that it’s been moved to that big conference room…”
“Had to,” David said. “More people than expected want to attend.”
“But the conference room’s layout is different - it’s on the second floor and closer to street entrances. My bad feeling’s getting worse.”
“Want to go look at it?” David asked.
They did. Finished feeding Jesse, changed and hugged him, and tried to put him in his crib in the next room. No dice. He wanted to play more. “Duracell kid,” David muttered.
More smooches and off he ran and stumbled to a little girl trying to climb a big red ball. Len had been called away and had handed Ollie to one of the childcare people.
They walked connecting halls and took an elevator to the second floor of an annex building, and a glass-walled corridor lined with three conference rooms on the right.
They went into the largest. Workers had already set up eight round tables for eight people each. In the front of the room was a small stage with a podium.
“Looks nice,” David said. “Simpson wants all of us seated at that table, number four, near the podium.” He pointed. “Tricia, Sam, Woody and us. I suggested Gary, too, called him and he’s coming. Simpson was happy to hear he’d been Jesse’s pal too since his seventh month.”
“So that makes us six at a table for eight,” Jill murmured, surveying the pink linen tablecloths and napkins. “Just the linens are out? Oh, tomorrow they’ll put the plates, silverware and coffee cups, right?”
“Well yeah, can’t let ‘em get dusty.”
Jill gave David a solid stare. “And those plates and coffee cups mean waiters, right? And Alex said Haven sent out waiter resumes?”
David gestured. “I told you. It’s the hospital’s same caterer as always, everyone with super-checked resumes. After I left Simpson I remembered they did your greet-the-interns party. This year’s bunch, too. The name clicked.”
Jill scanned the tables again. “Why can’t these researchers just all bring sandwiches or something?”
“The hospital wants it to be special…Jill? Jill?”
She was walking away. He caught up to her at the door.
“Jesse will not be making an appearance,” she said tightly. “Neither will we. Why couldn’t the hospital’s Jesse studies have just been put online? Sites where you have to be a physician or researcher and be subscribed?”
“They want to see him.” They were back out in the hall.
“There are photos online.”
“He’s such a friendly kid,”
David persisted. “That’s what will amaze them, as much as the fact that he’s ahead in his development. People expecting some little robot will take one look at his grin, the friendly way he goes to people-”
“No.”
They’d reached the elevators. Jill punched the Up button, her face set.
David, upset, reached for hyperbole. “C’mon, Jill. This is like not letting the Wise Men into the manger.”
“Right! Tell ‘em to take their sheep elsewhere!”
Her phone beeped. She listened and said, “Be right there. How many centimeters dilated?”
When she hung up David raised his palms. “I think you’re projecting,” he said very gently, as if talking to a psych patient. “Displacing your fear of Haven to a bunch of OB and pediatric researchers-”
“And waiters. In all over seventy people unknown to us and hospital security. Plus there’s the conference room kitchen staff - don’t they have to assist the caterer re-warm their quiche or whatever?”
“You’re projecting and displacing-”
“Ya think?” Jill stomped steps ahead of him, gesturing frantically. “Gee, a whole day and Haven hasn’t killed anybody. Wasn’t he supposed to be escalating? What do you suppose he’s planning next – and you know he’s planning. I’ll bet he’s outside in the street right now, glaring at the hospital, dressed like a bum or even a cop or something. How can he not be extra crazed after being rousted from his second hiding place? Plus he’s convinced himself you betrayed him. Loves believing his own propaganda.”
“Jill.” David tugged at her scrub top and she yanked away.
The elevator arrived and the doors slid open, Jill stepped in and looked back at him. Her eyes glistened, but she still looked adamant.
He put his hand on the closing door and stopped it. “Care to share this cab, Ma’am?” he asked sweetly.
She hesitated, then nodded tightly. “But not another word. My mind’s made up.”
“You mad at me?” He stepped in, looked hurt.
“No.” The doors closed. The elevator rose. A long moment passed between them.
“We can’t raise him like this, Jill.”
She swallowed. “Like what?”
“Hiding him from the world. Afraid of every public exposure. You’ve been terrific, haven’t transferred any fears to him yet, but still…”
Jill stared at the shiny aluminum of the elevator doors, and saw her reflection looking back. Tight-lipped, stubborn, fearful, maybe even getting paranoid…
No, they couldn’t raise Jesse in fear. Jill hated the way she looked. She’d been hating the way she sounded all along, and felt suddenly lost, hollowed out. She half turned to David.
He looked up from staring at the floor, and dared a small smile.
There were no in betweens for Jill. She felt suddenly ashamed, a total jerk, and dropped her face onto David’s chest.
“You’re right,” she managed. “I’m overreacting. I’m just so damned tired.”
“Exhaustion and nerves, the worst combo,” David said, wrapping his arms around her. The elevator rose higher, and now his stomach fell away.
He felt worried too…because it really was always there for him, under the surface. Worry about Jesse and Jill, the two of them, worry about overprotecting, under protecting, worry about something bad happening.
But it was like that with all families, wasn’t it? You just…worry about those you love. It’s not really about tomorrow, he thought, trying to persuade himself…
35
“This is really nice of you.”
“Hey, no biggie, I need the money. A hundred a night isn’t too much?”
“Nah, I’ve got it. Hotels are worse, and we’re going to be working together, right?”
Mitch Haven placed his duffel on his new pal’s sleeper couch. The studio was tiny, with a double bed crammed against the opposite wall and a small window that overlooked an airshaft. His new buddy watched him look around, smile back at him, and must have felt self-conscious.
“It ain’t much, but it helps me save for acting school.” A foolish gesture. “Women don’t seem to mind.”
“Take a picture.” Mitch Haven smiled again. “When you’re a star you’ll remember these waiter days and laugh, appreciate it more.”
“Hope so.”
“I’m sure of it. You’ve got the looks, the smarts, and your emotions are in your eyes, that’s what audiences go for.” Haven sat on the lumpy sleeper couch. “I like your new name, too. Zac Baker sounds better than Wally…what was it?”
“Babiak.” Zac bent before his little fridge. Haven caught a glimpse of stacked hot dogs and baloney. Zac brought back two Coronas and sat on a spindly chair. “Well, Brad, here’s to your future too,” he said, leaning forward to clink bottles.
Haven had told him his name was Brad Fuller. Right now he felt like a Brad.
“Your girlfriend must be out of her mind for kicking you out,” Zac said. “What’s the matter with her?”
A shrug. “We were coming apart anyway.” Haven took a pull from his beer, sized up Zac again. They were about the same size, perfect. “It was luck meeting you at that waiter interview,” he said.
“Yeah well, us struggling actors need to support each other. You’ll like this gig. A friend of mine’s worked for this hospital a lot. Through Banford, I mean. He’s the one who gave me an in with them.”
“Oh?”
“Banford Events does all their parties, everything. For this, their conference room kitchen staff will be helping. All we’ve got to do is” – air quotes – “interact with them.”
“Interact, right.” Haven snickered. “That’s what the ad said.”
“You must have had an amazing resume to get hired out of that huge bunch. Banford’s really picky. What was it like working at The Four Seasons?”
A modest gesture. “Great tips, a manager who likes me, understood I couldn’t work regular hours because of auditions.” And whose name was right on their website; wrote a fab recommend for me although he doesn’t know it.
Zac shook his head, impressed. Then looked around. “Where’s your waiter’s uniform?”
“In my duffel.”
“You should iron it and hang it up. I did mine earlier, see?” Zac gestured to his black pants, vest, and white shirt hanging from his closet door.
“I’ll get to it,” Haven said, and took a long pull of his Corona.
“You a little broke or flat broke?” Zac asked delicately.
Haven shrugged. “I’ve got some saved up. And unfortunately, there’s family money, which I blame for hanging on too long, running to auditions, hearing No, No, No.”
“Ha, tell me about it. I’m so haunted by that scene in Sweet Bird of Youth where Chance tells Heavenly-”
“Oh pain, don’t go there,” Haven grimaced. “I’m so done with acting.” As if he knew what this kid was talking about.
“At least you’ve got family money,” Zac said wistfully.
“Yeah. They’re suggesting I open a restaurant. With all my extensive experience waiting on tables, they think I’d be qualified. Doesn’t that just warm your heart?” Haven smirked bitterly.
“Maybe it could beat acting…and they’d back you?”
A reluctant nod. The kid was looking at him wide-eyed, swallowing all of it. This was better luck than he’d hoped for. Haven gestured with his bottle. “Although I did have an idea. Start a restaurant geared to actors. With photos on the wall of biggies, behind-the-scenes shots of movies where I was an extra. Word could spread, maybe it could click like an updated Sardi’s. Become a place to see and be seen.”
God I’m good at making stuff up, he thought.
“I love it!” The kid was excited. “It could be a huge success and you could start another and then a chain like Hard Rock Café, and you’d get so rich you could back my first movie!”
“It could happen.” Oh, what good pals they already were. Haven curled his lips into a grin and looked around aga
in. “I’m starving. Lemme take you out to dinner.”
“No, I couldn’t. I’m already charging you-”
“It’s nothing. C’mon, let me take you to a nice place.”
“I haven’t been going out nights unless I have to. This Couples Killer-”
“I know a place near. Don’t worry. How’s a thick steak sound to you?”
“Whoa. A way to die happy.”
Le Bistro was nice enough to impress the kid, who ordered and drank all moon-eyed and ravenous. The waiters hovered and bobbed and rushed their butts off. Seemed extra happy for the business, given the fear gripping the city.
Haven had really come to study them. He’d been in nice enough restaurants before, mostly in stopovers abroad, but he’d never paid attention to the waiters.
Now he watched from the corners of his eyes. Let’s see, bend and serve from the right, never the left. Smile. Watch the water glasses, keep them filled. Watch for customers signaling to you. He studied the place settings. Knife and spoons to the right, forks to the left, small fork on the inside if it’s for dessert. He’d never paid attention to such crap.
Done, with the kid slightly drunk two hours later, he paid in cash.
“Wow,” Zac gaped. “That’s real money.”
Out on the street, they walked through pools of streetlight and neon, passing a uniformed cop who didn’t even glance at them.
Mitch patted his wallet in his pocket. The money mugged from that tranny-loving corporate type was holding out fine. Between white-collars seeking drugs or sex, that neighborhood never failed for easy mugging.
“You gonna iron your uniform now?” Zac asked as they entered his building.
“Tomorrow morning. Long day, I’m beat.”
36
The hospital had suggested that they be rested, but they were too wired to sleep.
They went to the nurses’ desk, checked nurses’ notes and patients’ conditions, bantered uncomfortably with the nurses about “tomorrow’s big day!” and, “Ooh, wish I could be there.”
Then they went back to put Jesse to bed, spending extra time with him, hugging and hugging him as if they were about to give him up to the world, expose him to more…what?
CATCH ME (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 4) Page 16
